So a few days ago there were reports in the news of a gamma ray burst visible with the naked eye. Unfortunately I wasn't able to see it, I was clouded up pretty bad down here.

Let me say that again, last week it was possible to see a gamma ray burst with the naked eye.

This explosion was 7.5 BILLION light years away. To put that in perspective, the most distant object visible with the naked eye usually is the Andromeda galaxy at 2.2 million lights years distance, this explosion happened about 3500 times further away. Half way to the edge of the visible universe.

The GRB reached magnitude +5.8, equivalent to some of the faintest stars you can see at night and would of remained visible for about 30 seconds.

Incredible is the only word to describe it, a handful of lucky non-cloud covered people could of seen an explosion that happened before the Earth or the Sun had even formed.

I'm reminded of a quote by Phil Plait:

Why do I do this, why do I fight creationists? You know why? Because their God is too small. 6000 years, are you kidding me?

He's right the real universe is far beyond any work of fiction, any mythology. And of course Carl Sagan:

The size and age of the Cosmos are beyond ordinary human understanding. Lost somewhere between immensity and eternity is our tiny planetary home, the Earth.

We desperately need the separation of church and state in this country. As I previously wrote about in January those indoctrinated into a religious ideology are up to their usual tricks trying to shoot down, or water down the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill.

I don't have time to go into all the details here, so I refer you to my previous post on the issue.

We've got Des Browne, Ruth Kelly, and Paul Murphy all Roman Catholics blabbering on about saving embryos (read babies), I suppose secretly they all want to ban abortion as well, persecute homo-sexuals and stone to death anybody who tempts them to another god, or anybody who works on a Sunday (it's all in the good book).

This is an absolute disgrace all three should resign. We've got people dying from diseases which we can, and will cure if the chains placed upon science are lifted. Yet they're more worried about a genocidal, blood thirsty and sadomasochistic cook book of stories put together over a thousand years. What's really barking mad is they seem to believe this cook book is the inspired word of god, if that's true god is a really unpleasant character.

When exactly was the Enlightenment again?

Well I'm waiting for the Church of Scientology to get involved in parliament, maybe demand equal rights for the souls of their dead alien friends who got trapped on Earth during the interstellar war thing with Xenu and co. Gotta respect those sacred religious texts right?

Parliament should be a place of rationality, reason and evidence. Not a place where ancient mythology can influence. Hopefully Gordon Brown sticks to his guns and gets this bill through - heck maybe he could demolish all of Tony's creationism schools while he's at it. Sorry Tony Blair but you can keep your Noah's Flood in your Bible and out of my science books.